Will the Madness Ever End?
Those hoping for a period of normalcy or even a stable freedom and prosperity will have to wait longer.
BY BROWNSTONE INSTITUTE
There was very good news this week about a major employment upheaval at HHS, one that affected all agencies listed under health. It moved or terminated many major players at these agencies who were either behind, complicit, or otherwise wrongly silent over these past five years.
It’s an encouraging start but even more. It was the largest layoff by number of any reform in the history of the US civil service. Though not presented as such, it feels like an element of justice. Certainly, public opinion backs the move.
All legacy media condemned the reform. It is already facing litigation, of course.
Barely two days later, the US reversed 80 years of trade policy and boosted global tariffs to levels not seen since 1909. Those were days without an income tax or central bank. Today we have high taxes, inflation, plus high tariffs.
The plan appears to be to force a new monetary accord for the world to be organized after the dust settles from this move. The map is unclear, and monetary accords like this do not have a historical record of stable success.
The stock market coughed it all up, as expected, and now there is talk of recession. But as Brownstone has published, the US has been in real recession mostly since 2020. For years, the economic data has been like the Covid data, untrustworthy and distorted for political reasons.
Those hoping for a period of normalcy or even a stable freedom and prosperity will have to wait longer.
Brownstone was in Spain last week meeting with the top writers and intellectuals who are still fighting the censorship, cancellations, and tribulations of the last crisis. There, as here, there are positive trends and negative ones, plus population division and unrelenting propaganda to the point that it is hard to figure out what is real.
The need for a support system for those who fight the intellectual battle for freedom is more apparent than ever. That is what our Brownstone Fellows program provides. Please support our work if you are able.
Clayton Baker is a brilliant physician who has chronicled what precisely the experience means for the medical profession. His book, published by Brownstone Institute, is now out in physical form: The Medical Masquerade: A Physician Exposes the Deceptions of Covid. Kindle appears soon.
For the Midwest Supper Club, Steve Templeton is our guest on Monday, April 14th. He is the genius author of Fear of a Microbial Planet, which you certainly should read. Register to hear him here.
The West Hartford Supper Club features Laura Delano, Wednesday, April 23rd. Her best-selling book, Unshrunk, is on her personal experience with psych meds and the dangers for an entire generation.
For the Philadelphia Supper Club, Dr. Brad Kershner, Head of School at Kimberton Waldorf School and an independent scholar, will give a talk on Thursday, May 1 about the key ideas around artificial intelligence and the totalizing ideology of TechnoFeudalism. Get tickets here.
Here is some content since our last email.
Senators’ Silence on the FDA’s Failures By Maryanne Demasi. By all accounts, Marty Makary’s confirmation hearing to lead the FDA went smoothly. But the real issue was not what the senators asked Makary—it was what they didn’t ask him that was most concerning. They sidestepped the FDA’s failures.
How Big Pharma Weaves Its Web By Kim Witczak. From clinical trial design to regulatory approval, from controlling medical journals to silencing dissenting voices, the industry has built an intricate and self-reinforcing web—one that traps doctors, patients, and even regulators in a cycle of pharmaceutical dependence.
The Confidence Man By Erich Hartmann. Progressivism often confuses good intentions with good outcomes. And their participation trophies weren’t just harmless, plastic souvenirs—they were symbols of a broken ideology. The policies born of John Vasconcellos’s utopian theories weren’t harmless overreach; they were a generational catastrophe.
The City That Treats Adults Like Children By Randall Bock. Newton’s law bans everything with nicotine—whether it burns or not. Cigarettes. Vapes. Nicotine gum. Pouches. Even options that help people quit smoking are now outlawed for future generations. Meanwhile, marijuana sales continue—untouched, unrestricted, uncriticized. Why? Follow the money.
Concientización and the Rebirth of Critical Thinking By Toby Rogers. The most profound idea that I learned was concientización. There isn’t an exact equivalent in English. Concientización is the process of becoming aware of how the world actually works. It’s about learning to break free from mental colonization.
Australia Drops Covid Vaccine Mandate but Devastating Effects Remain By Rebekah Barnett. Though the mandates are now over, AFP employees pushed out of the job are still living with the effects. Former officers describe feeling “shunned” by the AFP, with the loss of their careers, livelihoods, and homes taking a devastating toll.
Brownstonians in Spain By Jessica Rose. Brownstonians from all over the world recently met in Spain to share, bond, impart information, and most importantly, eat together. I was glued to their stories like eyes to a proverbial television set.
Aleksandr Dugin’s World of Particulars By Bert Olivier. Experiencing the diversity of the world’s cultures enables the traveller to savour different customs without relinquishing the thought that these all belong to humanity as a whole. No globalistically homogeneous world could offer that.
The Story Could Have Happened Anywhere By Christine Black. Josh Urban’s book, Cities on a Hill: 21 Isolated Months with the Elderly During COVID, was prominently displayed near the front of the store as a welcome anomaly after searching for books by anyone exploring what we have endured.
Covid Vaccine: Truth and Justice from Trump? By James Bovard. The Covid vaccine was a political fix from the start, and Americans deserve a full accounting of the risks behind the injection that Biden sought to compel. Hopefully, the Trump administration will open the files and disclose hard facts ASAP.
USAID and the Architecture of Perception By Josh Stylman. The ultimate battle isn’t just for truth – it’s for the human spirit itself. In the end, their greatest fear isn’t that we’ll reject their manufactured world – it’s that we’ll remember how to see beyond it.
Dear US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention By Tom Jefferson and Carl Heneghan. You will not be able to hide the observational studies and models used to support your policies. Who knows how many more machinations your funders, the US public, know nothing about are backstage. Presumably, we are about to find out.
The Swirling Vortex of Weaponised Lawfare By Ramesh Thakur. In discussing the current jurisdictional kerfuffle between the US federal executive and judiciary, I find it impossible to overlook the failure of the courts to protect people’s rights, dignity, and liberty under comprehensive assault from the administrative state during Covid.